PS 3515 

•E77 P6 

1914 Poems ] 

Copy i by 

Harold Hebbey 



First Edition 100 Copies 



Contents. 

America's Prayer 5 

Contrast (The) 20 

Disillusion ___ 7 

Library of Congress 9 

Love's Life _ . _ 22 

Philosopher (The) -14 

Song 11 

To Iantha .. 13 

To John Keats _ 21 

To My Father 3 

Twilight - - - 12 

Washington Monument _ . 16 



To My Father. 

Our years are fleet, 

And to the weary, death is sweet. 

Longfellow. 



'G- 



How like some panorama do the years unfold, 
Since that gray evening when we bid farewell ! 
The train pulled slowly out, with your pale face 
Fast dimming in the smotry, shadow mist ; 
The faint, slow waving of a Father's hand, 
A kiss tossed on the empty air ; are now 
The whole my memory owns of that short day. 



My arms reach out to you across the still, 
Cold night; unechoed does my cry ring through 
The endless ways of darkened space; my eyes 
Strain past the veil to where you silent are 
Against the breast of mighty God ; my feet, 
So soon bespotted by the dust of life, 
Raise slowly as I vainly push ahead. 



How brightly does my pictured youth beat at 

My heart. What deadened dreams entreat my soul 

For utterance. For now our wonder walks 

Are done; the strange, sad cities o'er the world 

Will never more resound with your firm tread; 

The hours turn without your voice; the days 

Pass on without your love ; the weeks wind by 

With no familiar smile ; the months change fast 

To years, these years to life, and I alone 

Must battle here with worlds you fought and found 

Too strong to conquer with your mighty will. . . . 



Somewhere beyond, I see us hand in hand, 
Alone, as we so lived, with hearts that throb 
To all infinity of time, with lips 
That breathe that old affection of our souls 



Till then, farewell ! 



America's Prayer. 

God give us strength of spirit to bid our time 

As friends who own the love of friends ; give each 

The kindness that exerts itself in peace; 

Bequeath us patience with the anger of those 

Who battle on the fields of war ; give 

Sympathy to hearts that ne 'er before 

Beat with a sorrow vast as this ; give faith 

To souls that loiter on the outer rims 

Of night and batter at the doors of Death ; 

Let each act as his heart directs ere yet 

Another and another soul like frail 

Mysterious candles flutter and go out, 

Souls within a soul, swerved from the paths 

Of peace ; bend low in prayer for those who go 

Armed from their homes with banners waving high, 

Returning wounded to the fireside, 

Or left to moulder in a lime-filled trench. 

Let the lyric fingers of the poet touch 
The harp of poesy again and stir 
Humanity to broader things that all 
May patiently abstain and help to bear 
The weight of sorrow in the souls of men ; 
Let orators awake the crowd with words 



Resulting in united acts of love ; 

Let ministers create anew the Christ 

Who died upon the earth for Man; let those 

Who would assist, carve each a cross that they 

May understand and see the thing that one 

Christ from the womb of Mary died upon ; 

Let each look to his inner heart and rouse 

The dormant elements of sympathy 

And strength that he may know how mankind bleeds 

Upon another soil; how children starve; 

How stricken mothers bow their heads and weep ; 

How homes where summer not so long ago 

Still lingered in the door and through the woods, 

Now smoulder in their ruins ; how meadows wait 

The idle plow and dreary streets resound 

To tramping feet. 

God give us eyes to see 
What suffering is theirs; the simple strength 
To pause above the brink; the heart to feel; 
And poAver to fulfill the destiny 
That waits us in this widespread hour of need. 



Disillusion. 

(You have been a voice upon the silent waters, 
The shadow of a sail in hidden harbors, 
An echo in the richly fruited arbors 
Of my soul.) 

Off where the mystic forms of dreams arise 
Beyond the circlet of the sunset's hue, 
Past all the wealth of worlds and paradise, 
Past suns and stars and all the skies — to you. 

This endless edifice of unknown things 
Shall stop me not, nor hinder what I do, 
For I have taken Fate's unfolded wings 
And mount the steps of Time to wing to you. 

Through darkness of the stilled and starry night, 
Through shades that gather 'round the setting sun, 
I take my lonely and untiring flight, 
For Fate will tremble when your love is won. 

Through loops of mellow light that transcend space, 
Up from the bounds of shadeless sky I rise, 
And through the mists close watch your mirrored face 
And stand within the shadow of your eyes. 



(You have been a voice upon the silent xvateps, 
The shadow of a sail in hidden harbors, 
An echo in the richly fruited arbors 
Of my soul.) 

A sensuous silence falls, all fades, behind, 
I've passed the fringes of the heavens through, 
My dream has spread its wings upon the wind • 
Ah, surely this dim shadow is not you ? 

I've drunk Life's spirit wine within your eyes, 
And tasted lips still trembling with our fire, 
I 've hearkened to your heart 's unuttered sighs 
And breathed the air of passionate desire. 

Why lies the image shattered at my feet? 
Why must the echo vanish with my song ? 
Ah, but the memory is bitter-sweet, 
We know the truth yet we go on and on. 

(You have been a voice upon the silent waters, 
The shadow of a sail in hidden harbors, 
An echo in the richly fruited arbors 
Qf my soul.) 



The Library of Congress. 

Oft do I stand alone there at the end 
Of some rich corridor and watch the shapes 
Of shadows trace their ghostly ways across 
The floors and cnrl about the pillared stairs; 
Rare hours have I seen when all was bathed 
In radiant light; when daylight slowly died, 
The gleaming marble of the walls would fade 

In darkness here and there a web or thread 

Of light yet caught upon its face ; then would 

The little globes flash out by thousands through 

The halls, and lo ! the shapes from out the mist 

Of evening changed to strangest beings there 

That soon became a world of phantasy. 

Here have I come amid a storm and found 

Sweet peace and heard at times the soft wind hands' 

Play with the shining panes, and watched the rain. 

Forms of a myriad men and women will 

Travel like spectral shapes and leave the breath 

And sound of passing; coming voice's shall 

Ring here that now cling silent in the teeth 

Of Time ; twin hearts and hands shall tremble in 

These corridors unknown to hurried throngs; 

Firm feet shall tread the floors, grand minds upbuild 

Vast dreams alone amid these noble sights — 

All this with more than myriads of things 

Will mingle here unseen, a vital part 

Of what is felt. For those who put such stoned 

^Together, carved them into fairest forms- 



8 



The painters' brushes and the canvasses, 
Are but a smaller part of this great whole : 
For things by man created, must, ere they 
Are all complete, shroud slowly o'er themselves 
Thick veil on veil of mellow, throbbing time, 
Have earth and sky surround and cradle them 
Till all becomes as one in Nature's heart. 

But this great temple builded to the earth 

With infinite halls that thread it high and low, 

A maze of color, tints and shapes to please 

The eye, the touch of wondrous hands upon 

Its Avails, and crowned within the noonday sun 

By a dome of frozen fire ; without dim time, 

Those distant years that stretch off through still space, 

To cloud it with romance ; without these forms 

Of future living things, it still is art ! 

We speak of this as art, and we are right. 

Yet art is everything, and this is but 

A mode ; first planned then executed by 

The mind of man. Art has its fountain spring 

Within the templed halls of inner being, 

And what we see, though beautiful beyond 

The utmost bounds of any mortal doubt, 

Is but the shadowed, iridescent thought 

Of things that linger on the lips of God, 

Unborn within the heart of Man who still 

lias felt the spirit of unuttered words, 

Had dreams not caught by eyes alone, and built 

Upon the earth this temple of his visions ! 



10 



A Song. 

We're a part of the sounding sea, 
We're a part of the wind that blows, 

We're an hour in eternity, 
A part of rains and snows. 

We're a breeze above the curling wave, 

An echo in the night, 
A haunting tinge of a shadowy grave, 

A lover of the light. 

We're the breath that sways an autumn leaf, 

A thought on Nature's wing, 
We're a part of every joy and grief, 

A part of everything. 



11 



Twilight. 

The day 's last slender golden bat 
Yet lingered o'er the distant hill, 
Then faded as the evening star 
Came forth, and all the world was still! 

A bird brushed by me on the wing 
And disappeared amid the trees, 
And then I heard it gayly sing 
Among the branches and the leaves*! 

Afar I heard the Angelus, 
The crickets' chorus in the gloom, 
And a mother singing tremulous 
Unto the children of her womb. 

I passed the twilight in a mist 
Upon a roadway stilled at even, 
The hilltops seemed of amethyst; 
The moon of silver in heaven. 

The gray road turned upon its way 
And through the darkness took its flight \ 
And God thus let the sleepy day 
Pass through the curtains of the nighti 



la 



To Ianthe. 

Thou art a friend ! 

Flesh of my very burning flesh thou art ! 
The dawn that floods the darkness of my soul, 
That stirred the silence of my slumbering heart 
And made the adumbrated fancies whole. 

My dreams were formless till thy friendship drew 
Me from the shadows of unuttered days 
And set me flowering in love anew 
Within a world thy tender dreamings raise. 

Each fibre of my soul finds root in thine, 
Each rich conception finds a friend in thee, 
We drain Life 's store of all her days divine 
And Death fears us — for we 've eternity ! 



13 



The Philosopher. 

Upon the very lips of Life he clung 

Close to her heart in wanton fear, 

And saw the shading of each mood that hung 

Upon her face its smile or tear. 

Close to her heart he heard the mingled cries 
Of human suffering and pain, 
From which he traced the tears within her eyes 
And on her cheek the crimson stain. 

As though from bitter and eternal woe 
Within her eyes each shadowed tear 
Would slowly come and still more slowly go 
And in the darkness disappear. 

He learned to understand the wiles of Fate 
And touched the heartstrings of his life, 
Then turned and left ere it became too iate 
For him to leave the turbid strife. 

He knew too well that wondrous charm that clings 

About the highways of the earth ; 

He knew that from the memories of things 

We learn more of their actual worth. 



14 



And there he dwelt and spun his dream apart 
Content that he had lived and known 
The inner love that guides the human heart 
And comes at last to claim its own. 



15 



The Washington Monument. 

I. 

'Tis quiet! 

The earth is shrouded by the cloak of night, 

The city 's streets are resting from the storm 

And riot 

Of the day, while here and there a light 

Is glowing. Dark has crowded out thy form ! 

II. 

The brilliant dawn 

Has come ! The darkened East now slowly lifts 

Its brightly covered iridescent wings; 

A pardoning yawn 

Night gives for sleeping late and quickly shifts 

Its burden westward leaving waking things 

Upon its trail; 



16 



Dawn burns and crowds the mighty heavens fast, 
The startled stars fade one by one on high, 
Birds call and sail, 

Each nature form its lengthening shadows cast 
Across the earth, and sunlight floods the sky! 

III. 

Up through the mists of morn 

That hide the waking day, thy pointed face 

Appears as though just born, 

With thee as ever towering tall in space. 

The sunshine strikes thee with its glare 

And paints thy sides with streaks of gleaming gold 

That glitter in the morning air 

And swiftly all thy w T hitened form enfold. 

IV. 

Thou slender pointed figure tipped with sky, 
By weakling mortal made, yet of the vast 
And infinite elements that 'round thee cry, 
Alone against them all thou holdest fast. 



17 



Magnificent thou art on peaceful days 
When not a trace of cloud disturbs the sky, 
Toweringly doth thy head upraise 
Its pointed crown within the space on high. 
The world is crowded, cramped about thy feet, 
The very hills seem puny at thy size, 
And as I near thee through the dusty street 
Thy form appears to grow, thy head to rise. 
And when in thought I grope about thy base 
With eyes strained to thine utmost top, I see 
Within the measureless realms of trackless space 
Thee slowly moving through eternity. 



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V. 

But when the storm clouds at thy rear collect 
And thunder sends its echo through the day, 
Thy head serene and worldly feet connect 
The earth of man and heaven turning gray : 
A tireless Atlas pushing up the sky 
Upon his brawny back thou seemest then, 
And wondering do I often marvel why 
Thou lettest not the heavens crush these men ? 
When all the air is lit by lightning's flash 
With thee half lost within the driving rain 
And pealing echoes of the thunder's crash, 
I ne'er expect to see thy form again. 
But after all the storm hath died away 
Thou standest ever at thy lonely post, 
A mighty sun-dial through the glowing day, 
And through the night the shadow of a ghost ! 



19 



t *e Contrast 



Where thTfel^ 1 ' «* iU-lit p arfc 

S *a» homes th at t ""* Stores > ' 
J followed wherp «« n 

ie > a gift unknown. 



20 



To John Keats. 

Oh heavenly Muses weep for Keats no more, 
Weep not in vain, nor waste thy weary tears ; 
He wove within the twilight of his years 
A fame that lives supreme for evermore. 

Sad Keats! Who stood upon the borderland 
Of infinite things and felt all human wrong, 
Not even Death engulfed his fervid song, 
That torch of living flame held in his hand. 

In other lands alone, he sang his worn 
Existence out in early youth, then sent 
His threnodies throughout the world and bent 
Beneath the weight of pain so long upborn. 

No care disturbed the working of his art; 

In aching days and agonies of night 

There gleamed within his soul that lambent ligli 

Illumined by the embers of his heart. 

Long held within the mighty hand of Death, 

Eternal, long before his heart was stilled 

His heart left with its hopes all unfulfilled; 
He struggled on between each gasping breath. 



21 




So weary of his bitter life was he 
The Spirits bore him up within the skies 
And there among the twinkling stars he lies 
And sings to us through all eternity. 

Oh widowed World, bow not thy head in pain, 
Yon bird that wings across the distant blue 
Shall haunt the heart of God and bring to you 
The news that he was summoned not in vain. 



Love's Life. 

My Love 's life 
Beats in the void 
With featherless wing; 
Dead heart, dead strife. 
'Tis utter devoid 
Of voice to sing. 



22 



